


A True Master Needs No Potion

by iulia_linnea



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-09
Updated: 2012-03-09
Packaged: 2017-11-01 17:22:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/359367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iulia_linnea/pseuds/iulia_linnea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Master Blake punishes an apprentice and receives a reward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A True Master Needs No Potion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sarcasticsra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarcasticsra/gifts).



> Written as a companion piece to the [Thoroughly Inappropriate Series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/16241) in response to [sarcasticsra](http://sarcasticsra.dreamwidth.org/profile)'s prompt of _Severus: don't get him started talking about potions._

"Apprentice Carstairs, when last I checked, the Spellcraftres Guild did not admit Hogwarts Second Years to the Potioneering Department. How old are you?"

Carstairs, shaking and holding out his robes, stammered, "Er, I'm . . . tw—twenty-one, sir."

"'Master' will do, Carstairs."

"I'm twenty-one, M—Master."

"And having reached the great age of twenty-one, have you forgotten the ingredients of the Deflating Draught?"

"N—no, Master, but—"

"List them."

"What? But—"

"List them, Apprentice." 

Carstairs did not reply; instead, his eyes filling with tears and his arms, trembling, he merely looked pleadingly at him.

"Perhaps all the . . . excitement," Everett said, raking a contemptuous glance over Carstairs, "has made you forget. Allow me to remind you. The ingredients of the Deflating Draught are chopped daisy roots—"

"Sir, I mean, Master, I—"

"—skinned shrivelfig, sliced caterpillar—"

"Forgive me, Master, but—"

"—one rat spleen, and a dash of leech juice. Isn't that right?"

"No, Master, that's _not_ right!"

"No?" Everett asked, his eyebrows rising. " _No_ , Apprentice?"

Carstairs dropped his robes and shrieked as they fell against his enormously tumescent prick. "No, no, _no_ , Master!" he exclaimed, seizing his robes and again thrusting them out before him. "You've just l—listed the ingredients for _Shrinking_ Solution!"

"Have I, indeed?" Everett steepled his fingers. "But wouldn't you find such a solution . . . of use right about now?"

Carstairs violently shook his head.

"Perhaps you wouldn't," Everett said, "but surely you know how to brew a simple Deflating Draught, having so obviously brewed the Swelling Solution. . . . You did brew that solution for your own use, did you not?"

"Oh, gods, _please_ , Master Blake! I know it was s—stupid! I _do_ , but please, I need Deflating Draught, and . . . and I'm in n—no condition to . . . to brew it myself! _Help_ me."

"Master," Everett said, smirking.

"Help me, Master!" Carstairs cried, before falling, not quite limply, to the floor.

" _Everett_ ," said Daphne, emerging from his private study to kneel by Carstairs, "you might have helped him _before_ the blood loss—"

"I wouldn't say it was lost."

"—caused him to faint! _Where_ is the Deflating Draught?"

Everett flicked his fingers towards a cabinet, sending a phial in Daphne's direction, which she hastily unstoppered and poured down Cartairs' throat.

Its effects were immediate. "Oh. Oh, Merlin, it hurts."

"Don't worry, you're going to be just fi—"

"Oh, gods. Oh, fuck!" Carstairs exclaimed, pulling himself up from the floor and dashing out the door, his visibly deflating bits in hand.

Sighing, Daphne rose from the floor and closed the door before turning to regard her husband . . . who was now shaking, himself. "That was mean."

"That . . . that was . . . that was the funniest—"

Everett burst out laughing, and Daphne, in spite of herself, began laughing, as well. 

"Horribly m—mean, Everett!"

"He . . . deserved it. Dear . . . God, must I be plagued . . . with dunder—dunderheads . . . everywhere I teach?"

"Apparently so," Daphne replied, squaring her shoulders as she composed herself. "But you might have been kinder to him."

"I might have been, but I wasn't. He didn't deserve kindness. What on earth possessed him to do such a foolish thing to himself?"

Daphne moved to sit before Everett on his desk. "Not everyone," she said, glancing pointedly down at his lap, "is as 'confident' as you are."

Everett snorted. "You boost it, you know," he told her, reaching to pull her down into his lap.

"What, you mean without the aid of a potion?"

"Don't get me started talking about potions. I've more pleasant things on my mind at present."

"That's not your 'mind'," Daphne replied, wriggling a bit, "but I suppose it would be fun to let it do a bit of 'thinking' for you."


End file.
